Tag Archives: health

Discussion: The conversation is about addiction to opioids such as heroin and their pharmaceutical counterparts, including consequences, prevention and treatment. Jan speaks from personal experience about the difficulty of recovering from addiction and the consequences for all around.

Broadcast on 89.7 FM, WSHC, from the campus of Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, WV on April 16, 2016.

Think of Mother Earth as the biggest corporation of them all, too big to fail, share prices are falling dramatically, If it falls we all fall. Capitalism is fatally flawed in its assumptions and practices. For example, why is not Mother Earth on the spreadsheets, the balancing of the books, or the list of the Fortune 500? And yet what could be more important?

What about the immorality of distribution? The horrendous inequality? Why do these not show up as minuses on the books? It seems all humanity could be crushed into slavery and it would still show up as a plus on the books…rising GDP. Where are future generations represented? When resources are depleted why is this not a minus for future generations? So, it’s all in the bookkeeping. Standard capitalist bookkeeping is not in touch with reality. It is its own matrix, in isolation from reality. So, if you love capitalism then fix it. Correct the way that books are being kept and GDP calculated. We need to either fix capitalism by changing the way we keep the books and calculate assets and liabilities and profit and loss, or we need to ditch it and find a new system that takes care of earth and people.

Another species extinct? Where does that show up on the books? Not a blip. Oceans polluted? Where’s the minus for that? Streams and rivers deadly to fish and not safe for people to swim in? Where’s the minus for that? Fish full of mercury, poisoning our children, where’s the minus? Coal dust being sucked into our lungs? Where’s the minus? It probably shows up as a plus in medical services. Nonviolent criminals removed from the economy and stowed away in prison warehouses, where’s the minus for these lost lives? But it’s a plus to the corporate prison industry. What about the throwaways, kids coming out of high school or college without jobs, without any means to pay their debts or afford a decent living? Many of them resort to drugs to ease their pain and they die or get locked up. Where does this show up on the books? Why are bombs and poisons pluses on the balance sheet, as if they had no negative effects. We need to either correct the way we keep the books or we need to find another system.

What kind of bookkeeping counts A $100 increase in wealth to a billionaire as the equivalent to the same hundred dollars in the hands of the poorest of poor? Our bookkeeping methods distort the reality of value. It is a fiction, nothing but a fiction, an elaborate illusion.

Discussion: Current status of the Dark Act, formally known as the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act. Results of discussions with the offices of WV Senators Manchin and Capito to seek their support against Senate passage of the Dark Act.

Broadcast on WSHC, Shepherdstown, WV from the Campus of Shepherd University on September 19, 2015.

Note: On the audio I (Joe Gray) incorrectly state that the Dark Act had passed the Senate. In fact, at the date of the broadcast the Act had passed the House and was yet to be voted on by the Senate.

Discussion: Lyme Disease prevalence, symptoms, fund raising to support work to improve recognition and sanctioned available treatment for Lyme disease. Josh Cutler discusses work by his organization, The Mayday Project, to get IDSA to recognize chronic Lyme disease and revise the medical guidelines. Samuel McJonathan and Dan Morgan relate experience with Lyme and fund-raising through the upcoming Bless the Woods music festival in Fairplay, MD, June 11-14, 2015.

Audio program was broadcast on WSHC Radio, Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, WV on May 30, 2015